1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus in which an image related to a range of interest designated by an operator is obtained.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a known magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) apparatus, positioning of a field of view (FOV) is performed by determining a range of interest (ROI) which is designated on a reference image for positioning. Since the FOV available in a single imaging operation is limited in the MRI apparatus, it is only possible to designate the ROI in a range that does not exceed the available FOV.
Recently, a method in which a plurality of images obtained through a plurality times of imaging operations are connected to each other so as to obtain a wider range of image has been contemplated. In this case, the operator has to determine the FOV by designating the ROI at every imaging operation.
Examples of an FOV setting method are disclosed in JP-A-1-166750, JP-A-2003-250775, JP-A-2004-97826, JP-A-2000-308627, JP-UM-A-6-66629, and JP-T-2004-527301, for example.
However, in the known MRI apparatus described above, when the operator desires to image a sectional region exceeding the FOV available in a single imaging operation, the operator has to suitably designate the ROIs in correspondence with the desired sectional region. As the number of the imaging operation increases, the accompanying workload increases accordingly, thereby complicating the work.